My apologies to Rustic Rebel for my immediately preceeding post. She has responded to me with a gloriously lot of Bull. It is the fact that she even bothered to respond at all that impressed me. And, thank you Bunwhatever for your serious reply.

Guests who bother to stick around this long and actually read extensive amounts of our commentary don't usually maintain such a churlish tone. Makes me wonderif the "G" in the Guest-monikeronce had a guitar name attached to it. Hmmmm. . . .

You received several "serious" answers, oh-impatient-and-petulant-one. You just haven't figured out some of our techniques. So before you come back and try to insult anyone else into what? some sort of agreement with you (not likely--don't hold your breath on that one!) go back and take a look again.

Like highlight the blank spot on the page and take a look at the hidden text there, G-Splot-Ol' Man.

Please...can't someone help? We are becoming what in your culture is called "horny" and we very, very much need TAG-sentient helical DNA. We have the Labrador Retriever, too, but please, we are becoming very, very, very desirous of genetic replication. The consequences of failure in this could be quite dire indeed.

"churlish"...very good word, Silly River. Not often used, but, I have noticed that there are many words sprinkled around MOAB that are rarely used.

No, I have not yet learned the Games Mudcatters (or MOABites) Play. First, I will thank you for the helpful link. I'll will admit that your trick was quite amusing, and, Oooh, I see, you do scrolling text also! Can you pull a rabbit out of your pants? Make a turtle disappear? Or, perhaps, better yet, insult and talk down to a "newbie"? That is always good for a laugh among the guys!

And let's not forget to imply that the same newbie is really someone else, but that's old hat, someone else beat you to that one on another thread!

Yes, MOAB is full of tricky witty tricksters, Silly River Stage, but, I know some tricks myself.

I feel compelled to say I do not believe the King would allow such trickery and deceit in the land of :::MOAB:::

:::freds in need of TAG-sentient helical DNA indeed!! Tricks I tell ya!! And they are horny?? And they still have the Labrador Retriever, too?? Deceit and trickery. I think they are really trying to steal the duck-dog and and perform secret experiments on the gravitational pull of the inner molecular structure of the right paw/web that's connected to the hip/thigh, the hip/thigh's connected to the leg/wing, the leg/wing's connected to the neck/(well...)neck and la la la la la.....

See, I told you the freds would start telling us things about their life cycle. Now we know they, in common with insects, both mate with and eat their victims. How this is useful I don't know yet, but it will be...

There are a few squids* spare over in the tavern. I'm sure we can spare one to feed the freds the best worst that can happen is they kill each other off.

* Nutrional infomation, as per Fred Dietry Authority (FDA) standard.

Chromosomes: XXYYQ

Calories: -1780 per 100g. You will burn off more catching the thing than gain from eating it.

Vitamins and Minerals: 100 g provides at least 300% of RDA of all known Vitamins and Minerals.

Explosive content: Moderate, but diners should avoid smoking for 3 hours after eating.

When we last heard from a freds itheshe was after Bee-Dubya. Bee-Dubya hasn't posted of late. Are these two facts somehow connected? Could Bee-Dubya-Ell have been enticed and is now...no, it's too horrible to contemplate...he's now part of some sort of intergalactic orgy!

I heard from Bee-Dubya-Ell--as it happens, the freds tried his place, but all they managed to do was down his phone line.

Freds seem unable to distinguish between live and transmitted voice. When viewing the "is it live, or is it Memorex?" advertisement from broadcast signals captured in deep space they were clueless to figure out the difference. That's why they zapped his phone line after somehow picking up a call to the local Chinese take-out joint. It may have been too close for comfort.

Now, now, let's not bad mouth freds. We don't KNOW that they consume their mates. All we know is that they want their genetic material and that the mates aren't around afterwards. Perhaps they take a toenail or a lock of hair and then send them off on a long vacation in the Cayman Islands or something.

I have never heard of them harming a Labrador Retriever, for instance.

Are you then implying that the late Bee-Dubya-Ell should have covered himself in dog slobber? That freds wouldn't have snatched him so untimely from our midst, leaving here a vacant chair? That we shall meet, but we shall miss him? And will we miss him because of his personality, charm and wit or because he owes us money?

it has been suggested that I am male. You do not know that, but you assumed that. I do not know if some of you are male/female due to your Mudcat names, as you do not concerning me due to mine.

It is of no matter.

This thread fascinates me, which is why I return. It certainly is not because of your opened arms. The characters that you have pretended to be are interesting. Let me correct that. The fact that you create and pretend to be other characters interests me. Such creations as "freds" which is not humorous, nor, according to my research of this thread, has ever been, continue to return. And the rest of you respond and play along with the absurdity of it.

I think Doctors of many different fields could write many a worthwhile book on the subject of the people who make up MOAB. There are some obviously some very creative, though sick, minds at work here.

I wonder at those who have fallen away. Do you consider them "apostates"? There were many regulars in the first thousand or so posts that are no longer seen in your "Hollowed Halls". Where are they? Why did they leave. Why did you remain?

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes, I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods, Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook, To please the desert and the sluggish brook. The purple petals, fallen in the pool, Made the black water with their beauty gay; Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool, And court the flower that cheapens his array. Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, Then Beauty is its own excuse for being: Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose! I never thought to ask, I never knew: But, in my simple ignorance, suppose The self-same Power that brought me there brought you.

G-spot, I never assumed you had any gender one way, or the other. You're not gonna start whining about not being warmly embraced, now, are ya? Welcome to the MOAB, young lady.

See, the thing is, this sandbox is for those who participate there in. It is meant to offer some respite for those who come here freely and in goodwill. Because, hell, if we wanted to be snipped at, we coulda stayed on the political threads or almost any other, and we like the local style better. For one thing, it is kinda non-judgemental, if you see what I mean. We enjoy each other without having to evaluate whether others here, or we ourselves, measure up to some condescending standard of the sort usually emanating from someone else's mother.

Aw shucks, G-Spot, being either ignored or answered with cryptic messages that mean absolutely nothing is par for the course around here. Happens all the time. Think of the cryptic messages as something akin to Zen koans. They may not make a lot of sense, but they point the way toward something dimly glimpsed yet forever slightly out of our reach. It's like... No! Wait a minute! It's coming into focus now. I can almost see it clearly now! It's... Gluon! Get off of G-Spot's leg, dammit!

Well, it's only natural that Gluon should have an affinity for G-Spot's leg. After all, "G...Spot" was Gluon's father's name. Well, his real name was just "Spot", but he was a very ill-behaved mutt and he came to be called "Goddammed Stupid Fucking Shit-for-Brains Spot" more often than not. But, since "Goddammed Stupid Fucking Shit-for-Brains Spot" takes too long to type out, he came to be known as "G...Spot".

Gluon's mother, on the other hand, was named "Fupp Duck" which is a pretty good description of her mental condition when she agreed to consort with a mongrel like G...Spot. Woke up in the morning, looked at the empty Cuervo bottle, looked at G...Spot and said, "Shit!"

Surely you didn't think the circumstances leading to the birthing of a duck-dog would be anything but sordid, did you?

That was about the point where Gluon had enough of his father's endless boson and lepton the first orbital transition out of town; he drew on his inner resources of strange attraction and strong force to find his way to the MOAB where he has been happily charming all and sundry ever since.

G-spot, I am sorry to hear of your neglected condition, but with a name like yours, I am sure you can drum up some testosteronic vibes somewhere around the Cat -- we seem to have far too much of the stuff from time to time. It comes in waves. Sometimes it gets so bad all the librarians leave town to go shoot at each other with black powder rifles or slice each other up with sabers, before returning to their more peaceable haunts. Other times, we're all a bunch of wusses.

This weekend I'm to be in 1560 0r so, the rest of the summer weekends I'll be spending in 1585.

So tell us, Leo, what's so different about 1560 and 1585 that bouncing back and forth while in character would be so traumatic? 1960 to 1985 I could understand. But was the rate of social/technological change in the 16th century so rapid that 25 years would make a big difference?

Now now SRS, don't be mean. Little posts like that add to the whole general mish-mash sort of thing ( sorry, last ever episode of HHGG on last night, does it show? ), and gives everyone else a time to think.

On the other hand, thinking round here is probably not a good idea....

Quick, kipple and they'll not notice!

White Horses

Where run your colts at pasture? Where hide your mares to breed? 'Mid bergs about the Ice-cap Or wove Sargasso weed; By chartless reef and channel, Or crafty coastwise bars, But most the ocean-meadows All purple to the stars!

Who holds the rein upon you? The latest gale let free. What meat is in your mangers? The glut of all the sea. 'Twixt tide and tide's returning Great store of newly dead, -- The bones of those that faced us, And the hearts of those that fled. Afar, off-shore and single, Some stallion, rearing swift, Neighs hungry for new fodder, And calls us to the drift: Then down the cloven ridges -- A million hooves unshod -- Break forth the mad White Horses To seek their meat from God!

Girth-deep in hissing water Our furious vanguard strains -- Through mist of mighty tramplings Roll up the fore-blown manes -- A hundred leagues to leeward, Ere yet the deep is stirred, The groaning rollers carry The coming of the herd!

Whose hand may grip your nostrils -- Your forelock who may hold? E'en they that use the broads with us -- The riders bred and bold, That spy upon our matings, That rope us where we run -- They know the strong White Horses From father unto son.

We breathe about their cradles, We race their babes ashore, We snuff against their thresholds, We nuzzle at their door; By day with stamping squadrons, By night in whinnying droves, Creep up the wise White Horses, To call them from their loves.

And come they for your calling? No wit of man may save. They hear the loosed White Horses Above their fathers' grave; And, kin of those we crippled, And, sons of those we slew, Spur down the wild white riders To school the herds anew.

What service have ye paid them, Oh jealous steeds and strong? Save we that throw their weaklings, Is none dare work them wrong; While thick around the homestead Our snow-backed leaders graze -- A guard behind their plunder, And a veil before their ways.

With march and countermarchings -- With weight of wheeling hosts -- Stray mob or bands embattled -- We ring the chosen coasts: And, careless of our clamour That bids the stranger fly, At peace with our pickets The wild white riders lie.

In other news of import, an inter-species ad hoc team-building worthy of special note:

"ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — A 12-year-old girl who was abducted and beaten by men trying to force her into a marriage was found being guarded by three lions that apparently had chased off her captors, a policeman said yesterday.

The girl, missing for a week, had been taken by seven men who wanted to force her to marry one of them, said Sgt. Wondimu Wedajo, speaking by telephone from the provincial capital of Bita Genet, about 350 miles southwest of Addis Ababa.

She was beaten repeatedly before she was found June 9 by police and relatives on the outskirts of Bita Genet, Wondimu said. She had been guarded by the lions for about half a day, he said.

"They stood guard until we found her and then they just left her like a gift and went back into the forest," Wondimu said.

"If the lions had not come to her rescue, then it could have been much worse. Often these young girls are raped and severely beaten to force them to accept the marriage," he said.

Tilahun Kassa, a local government official who corroborated Wondimu's version of the events, said one of the men had wanted to marry the girl against her wishes.

"Everyone thinks this is some kind of miracle, because normally the lions would attack people," Wondimu said.

Stuart Williams, a wildlife expert with the rural-development ministry, said the girl may have survived because she was crying from the trauma of her attack.

"A young girl whimpering could be mistaken for the mewing sound from a lion cub, which in turn could explain why they didn't eat her," Williams said."

Mostly it is the fact that in 1560 I'm Owain Cramp- a failed wannabee minstrel with test anxiety - who has flunked his apprenticship exams for 40 years straight. So I'm nothing but the pre-minstrel Cramp. But I *can* carry a tune in a bucket and I prove it!

and in 1585 I'm Mario Leo a Pola de Finale Emilia, an Englishman born, by descent from the Italies,wandering taylor, proffessional uncle, and a servant to the rich (because it doesn't pay to be a servant to the poor) - currenlty indentured to a pair of Spainards - trying to raise enough money to bribe the Armada to stay home.

Bunnahabhain, now don't you start! It's enough to have had a guest hijack the thread and demand we toe he/she/its line instead of generating our usual voluable banter. I don't need a regular mis-interpreting me! Have you been over to the Mudcat Tavern? Then you'll know that LtS has a command of BS second to none. So the little Flamenco Ted moment was cute, but left me wanting more, you know what I mean?

Ah, for the good old days with the duck tape in the loo. LtS was very patient and a good sport about that. . . I can smell MMario's roasted auroch whafting out from the kitchen, can taste the cold beer, and darnit, I leaned my sleeve in the puddle of jello on the bar and I think I'm stuck to the barstool.

I only posted to this thread once, near the beginning, and have never read much of it, but, something made me click on it today. It must have been the post by Amos about the lions saving the girl... brought tears to my eyes. So... what isn't this thread about?